The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.

GAO-06-103 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: Education and Outreach Programs Target Safety and Consumer Issues, but Gaps in Planning and Evaluation Remain

"Over 3,600 people in this country died in 2009 as a result of crashes involving large commercial trucks and buses. Until recently the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and its state partners tracked the safety of motor carriers-companies that own these vehicles-by conducting resource-intensive compliance reviews of a small percentage of carriers. In 2004, FMCSA began its Compliance, Safety, and Accountability (CSA) program. CSA is intended to identify and evaluate carriers and drivers posing high safety risks. FMCSA has focused on three key CSA oversight activities to evaluate carriers: a new Safety Measurement System (SMS) using more roadside inspection and other data to identify at-risk carriers; a wider range of "interventions" to reach more at-risk carriers; and using SMS data to suspend unfit carriers. FMCSA expected to fully implement CSA by late 2010. FMCSA also plans to separately use data to rate drivers' fitness.In this report, GAO assessed: (1) the status of the CSA rollout and issues that could affect it and (2) CSA's potential to improve safety. GAO reviewed CSA plans and data, visited eight states, and interviewed FMCSA, state, and industry officials. "

To reduce the number of crashes involving commercial motor carriers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) within the Department of Transportation orders unsafe carriers out of service. To help keep these carriers off the road, FMCSA's voluntary Performance and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) grant program, a small program funded at $5 million per year, helps states establish information systems connections between state vehicle registration and FMCSA's safety databases. These connections provide states with upto- date information on carriers' safety status when carriers try to register or renew registrations with the state. For states to deny, suspend, or revoke registrations to out-of-service carriers, states must pass legislation enabling them to do so. As directed by a congressional committee, GAO examined (1) PRISM's effectiveness and (2) the potential to fully implement the program nationally. GAO reviewed FMCSA data and discussed PRISM with a wide variety of federal, state, industry, and safety stakeholders.

" From 2009 to 2012, large commercial trucks and buses have averaged about 125,000 crashes per year, with about 78,000 injuries and over 4,100 fatalities. In 2010, FMCSA replaced its tool for identifying the riskiest carriers-SafeStat-with the CSA program. CSA is intended to reduce the number of motor carrier crashes by better targeting the highest risk carriers using information from roadside inspections and crash investigations. CSA includes SMS, a data-driven approach for identifying motor carriers at risk of causing a crash. GAO was directed by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 to monitor the implementation of CSA. This report examines the effectiveness of the CSA program in assessing safety risk for motor carriers. GAO spoke with FMCSA officials and stakeholders to understand SMS. Using FMCSA's data, GAO replicated FMCSA's method for calculating SMS scores and assessed the effect of changes-such as stronger data-sufficiency standards-on the scores. GAO also evaluated SMS's ability to predict crashes. "